Issue #2: A Tale of the Desert
It's whispering again.
For as long as I can remember, I've had the dreams. I'd be in my room, or the basement, or sometimes just some road in the dead of night, and it would be there. A shadowy figure, always looking about the same age as me when I dreamt it, but that's where the similarities ended. It was dreadfully skinny, its skin wispy, seemed to flow and rustle as it stood in the edges of the shadows. It never tried to hurt me; it just stood there, staring into me with cold, empty eyes.
Four years ago, when I turned thirteen, it began to speak, a quiet, raspy voice, at first unintelligible, but soon I could understand it, a message, a warning.
"Can't hold it back any longer..learn..to control.."
I still don't get what it means, but that's what it says. And it says it often. There was one week where I'd had the dream every night, it just whispered the message in its rasping tone for what seemed to be hours on end.
Happy birthday to me.
Luckily, about two months ago, the dreams suddenly stopped. Unluckily, now I hear the voice. Creeping at the edge of my consciousness, its familiar raspy voice muttering in the back of my mind, not just the warning anymore, though it still sees fit to remind me of it; now it's common things, like an eerie post-it-note in the recesses of my brain. "Don't forget the keys", "The dishes are dirty", "The dog needs to go out".
I think I may be losing my mind.
Yeah, I know, "crazy people don't know they're crazy". Bu I find myself talking to it, thanking it even. I'm listening to a disembodied voice from my dreams, not to mention trying to carry on a conversation with it. I'd say I've got good reason to doubt that theory.
"Ian, you must learn to control it..I can't do it any longer.."
My eyes widened in shock. This was the first time the voice had ever referred to me by name, or to itself at all.
"What do you mean?! Control what?!" I asked, finding myself yelling before I realized I was doing it.
Silence.
I cursed silently as I looked out the window of my room. The mid-June sun was shining brightly, casting a cheery golden-yellow overtone to the quiet suburb I grew up in. I turned back to face my room, and after taking a few steps I flopped down onto my bed. I lie on my back and think about the message.
I don't know what it can't control anymore, but it has to have something to do with my body. My mind shifts back a few years, when my 'gifts' first began to appear. It started with a loss of appetite, a paler complexion, nothing too unusual, it's probably just a cold, right? He'll get over it. That's what my parents thought, and before long it'd been two months, and it still hadn't "cleared up". I became even paler, my skin turning a shade of dull purple, and my hair began to fall out. When I was fifteen.
At least I didn't have to worry about shaving.
Needless to say, my parents decided it was a good time to break the news: I was a mutant. A meta-human. An anomaly. At first I was excited. Mutants were the kids who got super powers and went off on crime-fighting adventures. I couldn't wait to find out what I'd be able to do.
Six months later, I found out my abilities ran the gamut of getting beat up at school and making my eyes turn glowing red. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly getting invites from top secret military organizations or special meta-human training schools.
It wasn't all bad though, I had still had friends, even if it took some convincing that spikes would shoot out of my body one day and impale them or anything of the sort. I finished freshman and sophomore year at high school, I'm a junior now, and even if I still wierded out some people, I'd earned the respect of most of my peers, and picked up some fighting moves for those that still tried to mess with me. My parents supported me too, and their encouragement was definitely one of the most important things to help me learn to deal with the drastic change I'd gone through.
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Two weeks later, I walk out of my high school, my last day of finals over, summer open in front of me. I don't head home though, no, I've been planning this since the night the voice called me by name. The note's already been written, they'll find it later. A few of my friends call out to me, a grin and call back, wish them a good summer. They look confused when they say they'll see me soon, and I don't respond. I keep walking, turn the corner, recover the small bag I'd packed and stashed beforehand.
I need to do this, I assure myself as I approach the train station, I need to understand whatever this voice in my head is, who this person in my dreams could be.
I pay the fare, most of the money I'd saved at the last minute, and took the train. I didn't look at the location, just decided to get on whatever train was coming in next. I climbed into the car, and watched my neighborhood disappear into the horizon as the train pulled off.
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I look out into the small western town. It's getting late, the sun's hanging heavily in the sky. I've been here for a while, it's already August. The past few months have been interesting, to say the least. I place a hand over the bony spikes that had protruded through the skin on my shoulders. They were certainly unusual, and seemed to help most of my endeavors since they appeared. Every couple of weeks I made a late-night 'appearance' to an unwitting citizen, grab their purse or wallet, and bolt; so far they've had enough money to keep me fed for a couple of weeks. It seemed that my mutant 'abilities' were furthered during my travels, hitchhiking across the US before eventually reaching this small Arizona town; I only needed to eat once every five days or so, and only needed about two hours of sleep. Whatever time I didn't spend meeting those needs, however, was spent out in the desert. I'd usually wander for a day or so, taking time to rest and meditate, to will the voice to speak again, give me another clue. It's been silent ever since it spoke to me on that fateful evening nearly two months ago.
"Go into the desert"
My head snapped up in shock. Finally, I'd been waiting for this for so long, a response, a clue. To hell with insanity, I was desperate, needed answers, needed to understand this mysterious voice in my head.
"Why..?" I ask weakly, still shocked by the sudden command after two months of silence.
"A trial. Gather supplies, and go into the desert. There you will seek answers; there you will find help."
"But.." I fall silent, I somehow know it's done speaking. I search through my now travel-worn bag, I still have some money left. I head into town, to a small 24 hour shop, and pick up enough food and water to last me two weeks. I walk out of the town, and begin my journey into the Arizona desert.
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I awake in a small room. I groggily glance around; the place is wooden, the only furnishings are the small bed I'm on and a table to my right, with a small mug sitting on it. I take in a breath, and smell what I think is tea. I sit up to reach for the glass, only to fall back, groaning at the pain reverberating through my skull. I can hear a sound from outside the room, I try to brace myself to fight, but find I'm too weak to do that either. The door slowly opens, and I'm greeted with the visage of an old man.
He is hunched over a cane, his dark, squinting eyes boring into me. The top of his head is bald, and his remaining hair is white and wispy. His mustache and beard look more like thick strands of hair that intertwine as they descend from his face. Even through this outward appearance, I sense a certain power, the strength of a prize fighter hidden behind years of age, a certain shine behind his dark eyes.
"Well? Are you just going to lie in bed all day young man?" his voice was quiet and amiable, but the inner strength that seemed to belie all of his appearances was also present.
"What... happened..?" I ask him, the words difficult to form in my dry throat.
"That can wait, for now, you need to recover. The herbal tea on the table will help you heal. I will be outside when you feel ready to leave the room," his tone was stern, yet soothing, even through the throbbing in my skull. He crept out of the room, and I set to work on gathering the strength to sit up.
Two days later, I finally managed to stand, and weakly made my way out of the small bedroom. The old man was outside, and after a few minutes of conversation, he explained how I had ended up in his small shack in the middle of the Arizona desert.
According to him, I'd stumbled into his little recluse a week ago, dehydrated and covered in what looked to be coyote claw and bite marks. He took me into his house, and took care of my wounds (though he said for some reason most of my wounds healed on their own). When I asked him why he helped me, he seemed to think about it for a moment, before telling me that it was a good thing to do, and then telling me that he sensed some hidden power within me. My red eyes lit up when he said that, this man could be the one to teach me the 'control' I'd been seeking since June. We continued speaking, and when he mentioned, not very much to my surprise, that he was a retired martial artist, I begged him to train me. After much deliberation, he reluctantly agreed, with the condition that I was committed to working hard, for long hours each day, from tomorrow on. I almost instantaneously agreed, and his eyebrows slightly rose in surprise at my eagerness.
"Alright then, get some rest young one, tomorrow your training will begin.."
And so ends the second chapter of Haunt's story. Placing the book on the ground, the next comic in the box is revealed: Chapter 3- The Shadeflame Master.
Ok, I am ready for the next installment.
DA
((<grins> Thanks, good to know someone's waiting for more. As for the next chapter, it'll be up as soon as I, erm, write it. Finals and the end of the school year kinda set me off track, I'm gonna start working on it tomorrow.
In the mean time...
Me and Roughshod were having a conversation the other day about who the FSS members would be if we were the X-Men (What? The CEO is a mutant telepath 
). I figured I'd probably end up as Nightcrawler, and the end result:
Haunt + Fangs and Some Blue Face Paint 
))
Who did you come up for Sly, or Boscoe?
YEAH! Who the heck am I??
Oh and by the way, love the art on issue two because I can FINALLY SEE YOUR FACE! 
Boscoe is archangel (I mean they both fly) and Sly is Gambit (it's all in the attitude dude!)
I have always fancied Rogue... hmmm... Rogue and Gambit
Deth and Sly Fox. is there a connection?
Hmm.
Situated in the back of the local Wizard's Well there sits a small, beat up cardboard box. Held within the container are several comics. They seem to be made to be 'professional-like', but a second glance reveals their true nature: these are comic books, looking to be at least two years old, that detail the history of a hero known as 'The Daring Haunt'. At the top of the small stack is what appears to be the first issue. This is the story detailed in those comics, the story of Ian "Haunt" Gabriel.
Issue #1: The Origin of the Haunt!
On November 13, 1978, John and Mary Gabriel's first child is born. Although he was a month overdue and somewhat pale after being born, the doctors assure the new parents that their child will be fine. They name him Ian, after his grandfather, and bring the boy home two days later; the doctors wanted to observe him and run a few tests, to just to make sure that everything's alright with the newborn. The new parents agree, also worried about the boy's well being. Two days pass, and the tests reveal nothing unusual, besides a slightly below-average metabolism, and 'something else...' The Gabriels, only seeing their son in between the various tests, asked the doctor what the problem was.
"His DNA is a bit 'jumbled', I suppose you could say. He's a mutant, for lack of a better word. While science hasn't yet given us the tools to see how this will manifest later, there's a rather good chance you'll have a little Statesman running around the house by the time he's a teen. Aside from this, though, he seems to be a perfectly healthy little boy," the doctor said with a reassuring grin and a soft chuckle. The parents were overjoyed, both at their son's bill of health and at the news that he could grow up to be a hero. They brought him home, and raised him as well as any two loving parents would; they decided to keep his mutant DNA a secret, however, to protect him both from others, and from himself. While they didn't want their son to be made fun of for his 'uniqueness', they were also worried of the other end of the spectrum, fearing that he could get a sense of privilege or entitlement because of his eventual gifts.
Besides this, nothing more can be said about Ian Gabriel at this point. He was raised as a normal boy, which, by all appearances he was. That is, of course, until the mutation began to manifest. But it's not yet time to talk about that. First, the story will be taken back, to about three months before the hero of our story is born, to be exact, to a very different world than our own.
The Netherworld.
It writhed through the dark underbrush, trying to escape. It was being chased, hunted by one of its own. Its skin was made from liquid Obsidian, fluid, dark as night, with clawed hands and feet that seemed to appear and disappear haphazardly as it moved. The only constant in the creature's form was its serpentine head, with eyes even darker than its frame; looking into its eyes was looking into infinity, peering into nothingness.
The being chasing it, a Pit Fiend, as they were called in the language of these wretched beings, stood ten feet tall, its visage the thing of nightmares. Large, leathery bat wings framed its back, bony, clawed hands tipped equally emaciated arms, and a scowl was set on its grim face, its skin somewhere between the pale blue color of frozen flesh and sickly green of vomit. One of the lower daemons of the Chorus in Hades, the beast was all too numerous in the "Pit". Still they cover the hellscape today, even after so many of their kin had been summoned by the Circle of Thorns to this world, as 'Spectral Daemon Fiends'.
The Pit Fiend continued to give chase, expecting the lesser shadow fiend to serve as a tasty meal. The creature pressed on, desperately searching for somewhere, anywhere, to hide. Viola! The glee was evident on the creature's face as it found its respite: a sinkhole.
Sinkholes are places where concentrated negative energy can be found on "the other side", usually found in the souls of wicked humans. Daemons can inhabit these holes, some using them for protection, while the higher levels of the Chorus of the Damned could use them to possess their owner. The obsidian creature was not one of these terrible Dark Lords, and so it sprung into the sinkhole to hide from its tormenter.
She was embraced by the darkness, protected by it, one with it. A daemon within a sinkhole is nearly impossible to reach, let alone kill, and so she comfortably remained within the dark soul that had saved her from the gut of the ravenous Pit Fiend. She studied the sinkhole she was in. It was somewhat small, but, after closer examination, it was growing. Testing the confines of the sinkhole, the shadow demon began to worry. Souls are never this damned before they fully mature, they haven't had time to commit enough evil acts. She worried about the vessel she had chosen to hide in, and looked through the realm, into the real world, at her host.
It was a yet unborn baby, still in his mother's womb.
This couldn't be. It didn't make sense. Seeking an answer, she looked within the boy. His entire insides seemed to pulse with negative energy, tissues and organs were slowly being broken down by them, replaced with shadowy counterparts. The shadows would kill the unborn child if not brought under control. Suddenly a protective feeling came over her; she needed to help her new home, her new charge. She had to protect the being that had just saved her from the maw of the Pit Fiend.
Most importantly, she needed to act quickly. The negative energy was already lapping at his nervous system, and more importantly, his brain, neither of which could be copied well enough to work. It was beyond her to even attempt to possess an adult, but this child; she could take control enough to stop the dark miasma within him. The Obsidian being focused all of her energy, needing every last morsel of it to both take control and pass through the realms. The sinkhole began to glow on the outside. Soon, her form melded with the interior walls of his soul, forever binding her to the one who had unknowingly saved her. Once within him, she was able to slow the speed of the negative energy, to stop it until the boy became strong enough to control it himself.
From that day forward, she remained with him, forever a part of him; his conscience, his guardian, his Angel, always speaking to him, an eternal friend and savior.
When she spoke to his subconscious mind, she called herself Eidolon.
After this, the first comic comes to a close. Moving on to the next one in the pile, the cover for Issue #2: A Tale of the Desert can be seen.